Volume 1, Chapter 38: Heart-to-Heart, Focusing on Making Money

I know. Going home is definitely out of the question, at least for the rest of this year.

The invisible pressure made it impossible for me to continue lying idle, so I got up immediately and headed to the company. There were many things I couldn't say in the earlier setting, so once we arrived, I called A-Long out to the smoking area.

"What's up? What do you want to talk about?" A-Long asked me straight to the point.

What I needed to discuss was, naturally, the money spent to ransom me. Judging from our late-night conversation yesterday, although the money was used to save me, Brother Hu didn't pressure me to pay it back directly. Instead, he hung the debt on A-Long’s operation, expecting us to clear it through performance.

Having walked through the gates of hell, even though I hadn't been tortured, I knew all too well how perilous the situation had been. If it weren't for A-Long sparing no effort to save me, it’s hard to say if I’d even be alive right now. This debt of gratitude was impossible to ignore. In terms of both emotion and reason, I had to ask him how he intended to account for that money. After all, it wasn't a small sum; we couldn't just pretend it didn't exist now that the crisis had passed.

Moreover, since the expense was charged to his account, it required his operation to generate enough revenue to cover it. In effect, he was helping me pay off the debt. Under normal circumstances, if A-Long owed the group 500,000, and his operation had a particularly good month, he could clear that balance. After that, any revenue his operation generated beyond its basic operating costs would be split with the group.

Suddenly having an extra million in debt meant he had to generate over a million in additional revenue, which prevented him from sharing in the profits earlier and meant he couldn't make money for himself. This debt assignment was Brother Hu’s direct decision. I felt I needed to understand whether A-Long was truly willing and what his own thoughts were, so as to avoid any future conflicts.

Listening to my concerns, A-Long said with an indifferent expression, "Didn't Brother Hu say it last night? That money is just on the company's books. We’ll just generate the performance to fill the gap; there's no need to distinguish whether it came from your work or mine."

"The money spent to save you, combined with the debt I’d already accumulated over the past few months, brings it to about 1.8 million now."

"Don't look at it as a huge amount. If we just have one explosive month and land a 'big fish,' generating over two million in performance, the debt will be wiped clean."

I knew all that, but I hesitated and said, "Isn't that unfair to you? That was your own debt to begin with. Once you hit a million in performance to clear that, you'd be entitled to a share of the profits every month. Now, you have to generate an extra million on top of that."

"What?" A-Long looked at me with a strange expression. "Are you planning to shoulder the cost of your own rescue alone?"

While it’s true that one should take responsibility for one's own actions, we had to be realistic. I knew exactly what my capabilities were. A few tens of thousands wouldn't be an issue, but nearly a million was far beyond my reach. I shook my head decisively.

"Then that settles it, doesn't it?"

"Why are we brothers worrying about such things? A debtor doesn't worry about the number of debts. Just focus on helping me boost our performance!"

I nodded. Just as I was about to head back to the office, another thought crossed my mind. I hesitated and asked, "A-Long, if... if our performance stays poor and we haven't cleared this debt by the end of the year, how will Brother Hu handle it?"

Because I wasn't clear on the local protocols, I couldn't help but wonder if Brother Hu would detain us, prevent us from going home, or force us to have our families send money to buy our release if the debt remained unpaid at year's end. I wanted to understand the situation to be prepared. If it came to asking my family for money, I would rather stay here than go back.

"I don't know."

A-Long shook his head and said, "All the operations were profitable last year, so no one was in debt, and everything was settled by the end of the year."

"I'm not sure if it’s just bad luck this year, but mine is the only operation out of the nine that hasn't broken even yet. So, I really don't know how Brother Hu will handle it!"

"But my gut feeling is that even if I’m still in debt by the end of the year, Brother Hu won't make things difficult for me because the group has already earned that money back."

"Don't worry. When there's no one else around, I'll try to probe Brother Hu's intentions."

Since the situation hadn't occurred yet, there was no point in overthinking it, so I let it go. After everything that had happened, my mindset had completely changed. I began to seriously fulfill my duties as a supervisor, urging the staff to work hard. Under my strict supervision, the operation's previously lackluster performance gradually began to improve. A-Long was very pleased with this and even told me that once the debt was cleared and he started receiving his share, he would give me ten percent of his portion.

In the blink of an eye, my days of focusing solely on work lasted until the end of the month. That day, just as I was preparing to leave, Brother Hai hurried over to find me.

"A-Dong, hurry, Brother Hu needs to see you urgently."